


A dog and a fairy walk into a bar...

by jaythewriter



Category: Marble Hornets
Genre: A werewolf and... fairy AU, Gen, M/M, Post-MH, yeah I uh. yeah!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-01
Updated: 2014-09-24
Packaged: 2018-02-15 18:06:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2238432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaythewriter/pseuds/jaythewriter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tim has been on the run ever since he left Tuscaloosa, unable to find a place where he belongs. He stops and settles for all of one night, and trouble quickly catches up with him, leaving him with a strange and hairy problem. At least he won't have to face it on his own.</p><p>EDIT: PERMANENT (?) HIATUS</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. An early mid-life crisis

**Author's Note:**

> For chapter one: trigger warnings for references to self harm, smoking, blood, and mutilation.

Tim has never driven this far for this long in his life, nor has he stayed up for this many hours without the assistance of a quick mug of coffee tossed burning down his throat or the threat of nightmares lingering behind his eyelids. 

Maybe it’s too early to be sure but his gut’s telling him that while he’s made some unwise decisions in previous years, this could potentially be the one to kill him. When Tim kicked on the ignition and the car started chugging along yesterday, he had no goal, no town in mind. He just needed to /go/, ‘move away’ as he told Jessica, and he has yet to brake and think, yes, this place, here, is where he needs to be. 

His worst fear is that he’ll be unable to stop driving, and he’ll waste away on the road until both he and the engine die out. A pointless death that he fought tooth and nail for.

If his days are doomed to play out like this for the rest of time, what’s left to fight for?

Except, he did have something to fight for. He had it handled: a full-time job that didn’t rattle him /too/ much from day to day life, a fucking amazing bed that had the cozy blankets made up of false wool from the specialized home life store downtown, and a girl or two who he assumed were attractive asked for his number at work… it was comfortable, normal. It’s what his mother wanted for him. He didn’t know what he craved for out of life, so he tried to want what she wanted, and settled for it.

It’s amazing. He thought he would be excited to come back to that. Or maybe excited is too strong a word, he hasn’t been excited since he was ten years old. Relieved, at the very least. No more running from something that will catch him regardless of the precautions he takes, an end to the sleepless evenings, security in thinking that he never has to check over his shoulder again.

Tim can’t find the positive in this. He digs and digs until his fingers bleed and nothing shines or glitters. Now he has no home to return to and act like life is going on as it should. No bed he can hide from the world in. No job. 

No friends. 

And, fuck, his mother likely thinks he’s dead, and, to be honest, it’s better that way. Less trouble for the both of them.

While the engine idles and he sits at red lights, he ponders upon what it is exactly that he’s got left. Well, he could take the old person’s view of it: he has his health, right? That mask is rotting away under heaps of garbage and other foul smelling substances, miles behind him where it ought to be. A surplus of pills are sitting in the knapsack thrown into the back of the car. Tons of food-- nonperishable of course-- and some bottled water, too, he stocked up on that as well. Maintained good health is certainly not going to be a problem, not for a long time.

He’s going to be fine. That’s what he entered into that static-soaked mess for in the first place: so he could return to being /okay/.

When will he be okay again?

Is it going to kick in soon?

Please?

\--

Men who have nothing left to live for are the easiest meals, like leaving a newborn out in the cold for any pair of jaws to clamp around. They come through her tiny hotel often, searching for themselves in a half-assed attempt at fixing their lives and maybe suddenly they’ll become appealing to their wives and bosses, and their children won’t hate them anymore. She only keeps bibles and generic coffee mixes in these rooms, so she hasn’t the foggiest idea why they come here for soul-searching but she isn’t complaining.

This one that comes in through the double glass doors on his lonesome, his ring finger is undecorated and he’s young-- though it’s never a good indicator for whether someone is suffering through parenthood. Nonetheless, it seems to be a safe assumption to make. He doesn’t meet her eyes as she asks if he’s here on pleasure or business, and he provides no answer, only a credit card held between two fingers and an impatient frown.

Bit early for this one to be struggling in the throes of a midlife crisis. Something has worn him down, though, stamped the lower lids of his eyes purple and tired his hand enough for him to forego shaving. 

Oh well, she thinks, as she rolls her grey eyes. A meal is a meal.

If he has bags to bring to his room, he leaves them behind in the car. Once he’s reserved his bed for the night, he stuffs his broad hands into his jeans pockets and makes for the elevators beside the desk, head down. She spies the outline of a box in his plaid shirt’s breast pocket; no doubt he has a deadly little habit sitting in there. 

“Sir, just so you know, we’re a smoke free hotel. You’ll have to take your cigarettes outside.”

He whips his head back, straightening up and, hilariously dog-like, tilting his head to the side. She flutters her long lashes at him, tossing her tied dark hair over her shoulder. 

Narrowed eyes are her answer, and nothing more, no words. Maybe she could have been a touch subtle about it, but she’s already thinking of how she’s going to get him tonight, and those cigarettes? 

Oh, they make her job so fucking /easy/. It’s one thing to creep into somebody’s room in the middle of the night and risk waking them. They all fight, always, always, so much fuss. Smokers are awake, yes, but they’re focused on the cancer stick clutched in their fingers and looking out into nothing, utterly unaware. Less mess to clean off of her nice silken sheets, too.

Thank god for nicotine and for the money-grubbers that decided to put people through hell by altering the chemicals in their brain so that they’re dependent upon the fucking stuff. 

Regardless of this, waiting for him to wander back downstairs takes its toll on her patience. Outdated magazines that she keeps sitting behind the desk fail to keep her attention, and she snaps at the next person to wander through her front doors-- people, actually, a family. When she tells the parents to keep their six year olds under control, they’re quick to defend their spawn. Not a good meal. Too much screaming and flailing to put up with.

That Wright boy’s arrival is inevitable, but she has no idea of how quick it will be. Hopefully before fucking morning, she only has until then and if she misses her chance, it’ll be another month running on raw meat and trying not to puke it up as her too human stomach attempts to process it.

Warm human flesh, tender on her teeth and a beating heart that rushes itself until it runs short of juice, and falls still after she sinks her canines in and beckons the blood to spill…

It’s fucking special. Her stomach roars loud in the empty lobby, over the crackle of the brick fireplace set to the left side of the room. 

And it’s perfectly timed as well; she hears the cheery ding of the elevators, and they rattle the garishly carpeted floors as they open to permit Mr. Wright into the lobby. She nods at him from over the desk, ponytail bobbing, and he returns it, albeit halfheartedly. Her teeth fucking ache as he crosses past the brick fireplace and the leather armchairs, right to the entrance where he draws out his cigarette pack and a lighter.

She pushes up the divider that allows her in and out from the desk and follows in his footsteps, taking the swinging sign on the glass door and flipping it to ‘no vacancy’. 

Peering outside, she sees him standing beyond the reach of the moonlight, next to what she assumes to be his car. Ever familiar trees stand looking out over him, the leaves providing the most perfect of hiding places. The road beyond the hotel is free of streaming headlights, a sure sign of a sleeping and carefree world.

The setup couldn’t be any more perfect if she created it herself.

\--

It’s a chilly evening, unusual for this time in August. Tim had wanted none of it, choosing to remain in his tiny hotel room and pass the time watching mindless late night infomercials on the bulky-backed television, but nobody can suffer through that for much longer than an hour. 

When he’s bored these days-- which is often-- he tends to reach for the packet he keeps in his pockets at all times. These cigarettes are hardly more than a suck on his dwindling budget, but they keep him busy. Particularly his hands. That’s important to him, especially when one of the few things he’s got left is a years long streak of wielding no blades against himself.

Yes, the urge is there frequently, an impossible itch that he can’t reach or satisfy. When faced with the destruction of his life, his brain seems to believe that he should go with it. Destruction leads to further destruction and nothing is left and nothing has been accomplished. Good work brain, smart move, you’re absolutely doing your job right.

Really though, standing in the nippy night and hugging himself as he attempts to light up one-handed, Tim has to laugh at the logic. He’s exchanging one form of damage for another, one that can’t be seen. Not that he’s doing it consciously but for the sake of relaxation and the taste.

Or Tim is thinking too deeply into why he smokes when he knows very well that it’s due to an addictive chemical. Nothing poetic about it.

That sounds about right.

One too many flicks of the lighter later, he puts the cigarette to his lips, eyes drawn to the orange glow at the very tip. He could have done his old trick and leaned out the room’s window to smoke, but the receptionist had made it a point to tell him where to go and out of some misplaced sense of decency, Tim felt he might as well go by her wishes. Who knows, maybe she’s had problems with people doing the window trick in the past. Doesn’t matter now, he needs to get through this, go back to his room, and pass out.

(Silence at last, no longer forced to spend time with his mind and the memories that won’t shut up, replaying in seven twenty high definition like he’s seeing it on YouTube again. Sleep. Sleep. Sleep. Quiet. Freedom.)

Tim inhales, and the smoke catches on a dry patch in his throat. 

(“Down the wrong tube?” a man’s voice jokes, turning his camera on Tim, and, no, no--)

He coughs, fist thumping against his chest--

His throat scrapes itself raw, a scream bursting forth from his chest, knives carve a path into his shoulders’ flesh and he’s tugged back, balance lost and cigarette rolling away on the pavement, embers extinguished by a rapidly kicking and stomping foot.

Heavy, wet, pants fill his head, increasingly heavy and dizzy as hot blood soaks his shirt a deeper red. His feet skid over the road and onto grass, where his worn sneakers slip against the damp blades and don’t provide him with the traction necessary for escape. Back against the dirt-- not so soft now, his spine arching at the pain that ricochets up through it-- and a weight on top of him, human in shape, stinking of liquid copper and sweat rotting in the creases of fur and muscle.

“Fuckin’ /got/ you, fuck, this is gonna be good…”

This familiar drawl pulls him forcibly into reality, drawing back his eyelids to reveal a face he doesn’t initially recognize but he /knows/ he knows it, it’s the nose that’s wrong, elongated and squared, dog-like, and teeth that have no right to be that long-- and she laughs again to seal his certainty that it is indeed the woman running the hotel he checked into.

But she isn’t herself, she’s not /right/, her nails are painting dark crimson lines down his arms and he’s looking into the trees, spasms wracking his muscles and eyes rolling into his skull. She shouldn’t be able to hold him down, she’s shorter, tinier than him, and yet her strength is that of a man twice his size. 

Her straggly hair tumbles over either side of his head, a curtain that cuts off the sight of the round moon overhead and the safety that comes of lying under the stars’ watchful gaze. Moving his arm is futile; it’s gone to jelly in all its shaking and it flops at his side, his fingers curled into claws that can’t find their way to her face as it descends and finds the exact spot her claws, not nails, true /claws/, sank into his shoulders.

Nerves that are already on fire burst and his lungs bid for a scream that never finds its way out. Her hand clamps over his mouth and his words are lost in her palm. The crunch of bone takes its place and muscle is gone in a swift whip of the woman’s head.

This is where he’s going to die.

In pain. Beneath somebody he just met. Heart pounding, faced with something impossible, out of this world-- and he almost has to laugh at himself. Nothing is impossible, he knows that, he should’ve taken at least that away from the horrors he drags in a sack behind him at all times.

And he would have gone out on that thought, mocking his own stupidity and losing more and more blood by the second.

A great flash that gleams past her, past the stars, past the blinking blotches over his eyes, is what saves him from taking that last stumble over the precipice. He’s blinded-- the blotches grow dark and her fangs tear free of his body. 

Whooshing fills his skull, filtering out the sounds of the world surrounding him. Over the flood of noise, he hears her howl of agony, a literal howl, dog-like and drawn out. Tim tries to pry his eyes open to see what’s happening to her, but the shining light refuses to dim down, veiling her from sight.

And, she’s gone. She doesn’t climb off of him or jerk backwards as somebody tugs her away; she vanishes in a trickling of fiery embers that die out upon the grass.

The pain in his arm is gone. He suspects that’s due to the nerves being severed-- but, he can /feel/ his arm still there, it’s not been torn off like he thought it had been.

In place of the pain is woozy waves that crash over him, again and again until they begin to take him under. He lets them, closing his eyes and giving in to the plummeting sensation inside his stomach.

The glittering lights above him begin to fade to blue before he does, and he swears for all of a millisecond, he catches a glimpse of the bright eyes of a man he thought he’d never see again.

Maybe he really is dying.


	2. The answers you want aren't to be found in a Magic 8 Ball

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After perhaps the second worst night of Tim's life, he's surprised to awaken and find that he's even alive after what happened to him. What's more surprising is the reason that he's still alive, and it's standing beside him, alive, breathing, and smiling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings for broken bones (it's a little skin-crawly in the description of how they're mending, so be careful) and blood/scars. Might've missed a few, let me know if I have.

The sensation of broken bones mending is not one anyone should have to sit through while conscious.

That’s Tim’s first thought upon opening his eyes. He can feel the shifting of solid mass beneath his flesh, and he knows right away what is happening to him. Any pain that he expects to feel pricking through his nerves is utterly absent, which ought to be a blessing, especially in remembering how much he shuddered and screamed through the forced movement of a broken leg. 

But the lack of pain leaves nothing but the feeling that there /ought/ to be pain there, and Tim wretches dryly, his raw throat souring under the acidic trickle of bile. His spine curves, and his hand comes up to his mouth, containing his cursing and tormented cries for help.

“Hold still, it’s almost done.”

His brain can’t process who the voice belongs to, but he trusts it on gut instinct. Gritting his teeth, he buckles down, pushing harsh breaths through his nostrils and focusing on anything but his body, such as the fact that he’s /alive/ and laying awake in his hotel room, sprawled on his back.

The quick glance around he had before being forced to close his eyes again tells him nothing has changed here, except that he saw the room in daylight this time and it’s dustier than he thought, more cluttered, a three legged desk shoved into one wall and the single bed turned at an odd angle so that it isn’t parallel with the wall. Maybe the owner should be hiring better help, or an interior decorator.

And the memory comes barreling into him, not unlike the sudden slamming of a car to a body caught unaware.

“Where is she?” he hisses through clenched teeth, squinting past barely parted lids. His chest heaves rapidly, and his breath comes faster at his attempt to sit up-- pressing his weight against his hands sends shocks up the length of his arms. Muscles throb and give out, forcing him to collapse against the bed.

Glimpsing a pair of blue eyes that glitter with concern while looking over him is all it takes to vanquish the anger burning hot in his chest. 

Tim freezes and melts all the same, thoughts coming to a shuddering halt. He doesn’t mean to stare but he does, looking away might mean that the illusion before him will fade and he’ll be forced to accept he’s alone. Looking at Jay, this very realistic Jay that’s frowning at him and touching a warm hand to his forehead, he can pretend for as long as he’s there.

The stinging sets in quickly, and his eyes are watering when he surrenders and breathes in, counting to himself, mentally preparing to see an empty space in place of the man his brain made him think he saw.

One, two, three, up to ten, and Jay’s still hovering over him.

“Are you still sleepy? ‘Cos, you should rest if so, but, I’m worried you might have a concussion,” he says, his voice falling on Tim’s ears and triggering a peculiar nostalgia inside his chest. Nights he forgot his meds or couldn’t help Jay with whatever goddamn code he had found, Jay fussed over him like this, checking him over and over for a fever and never finding one. ‘One of these days I will and I’ll know what to do,’ he’d say. Tim always kind of hoped he would catch a temperature, if only so Jay can have a chance to feel like he helped.

“Forget about me, you’re… you were shot to death, I think that’s more…”

Tim trails off, lifting an arm to grab a handful of the front of Jay’s shirt. Somewhere in the last few seconds, the movement beneath his skin ceased, and Tim has forgotten all about it by now, too busy fighting against Jay’s grabby hands as he pushes up his top. 

Snowy white skin is what he finds. Ribs strain to the surface, and his hipbones jut out as far as they ever have, but Tim doesn’t locate a bullet wound or so much as a fucking paper cut. Pure and clean as Jay’s skin is, he could have been newly born and come out fully grown. 

Jay has stopped trying to push him away, his face gone red and his hands waiting in the air. If Tim presses his fingers against the man’s stomach, he can detect a pulse there, thrumming away with fright.

Alive.

So very painfully, wonderfully, /miraculously/ alive.

“Holy shit,” Tim whispers in an exhale that shudders through his lips. He withdraws his hand, not all at once but by trailing his fingers down until they fall into air and away from Jay’s torso. The man’s sweater flops back over his barely there belly. He smooths his palms over the rumpled fabric and rests them there, protecting himself from further attack. 

Maybe Tim should be a little more conscious of personal space next time, but manners and logic don’t really occur to him at the moment. They’re placed on the backburner in favor of trying to wrap his head around Jay’s presence here. Though he has yet to move his eyes away from the impossible image standing over him, he still isn’t having any success. 

“How?” he finally utters, looking Jay up and down one more time. He blinks, testing it, just to be certain, and Jay doesn’t move from where he is when he opens his eyes again.

The blue eyed man pulls the smallest of smiles, reaching to scrub at the back of his neck and looking away from Tim.

“It’s hard to explain considering I’m not too sure how I’m here myself.”

Tim wants to shake the answers from him. Maybe he’ll be like a magic eight ball and spit out the answer he needs if he keeps on trying, but he’s having trouble convincing himself his skin fits anymore. It’s absolutely exhausting to be attacked by one’s hotel receptionist one evening and wake up to find out one’s best friend is actually alive the very next morning.

“F-- fine, fine,” Tim mutters, rubbing at the space between his eyebrows. “I probably shouldn’t be questioning a good thing anyway. Not much good happens these days.”

Jay’s face sinks at that, and he drops his gaze to the floor.

“I know. I feel bad for not being there with you for all of it. At least I was around for the important parts.”

The words are knocked from Tim’s lips at that. He stares-- he can’t stop staring, Jay isn’t becoming any less real and he’s calm, hands behind his back and cheeks a faint pink, but he’s acting as though what he said isn’t strange.

“Uh, what does that mean, exactly, you being there?” Tim asks, eyebrows darting up behind his shaggy hair. He thinks of the loneliest nights he spent in that much hated car, cradling a knife in his arms as if it were his most prized possession when in reality he would have given anything not to have to sleep with it nearby. 

The standing man sways in place, his blue eyes (unnaturally bright eyes, not quite right, something beyond human, actually, but maybe Tim is seeing things due to blood loss but seriously what’s going on with--) looking anywhere and everywhere.

“That’s something else I’m not sure how to explain.”

“No, try,” Tim demands, scrambling up on his elbows. He brushes off the shock of pain rustling up and down his shoulder and fixes Jay with a firm glare. “I’ll get off your back about not knowing how you got here but you’re telling me what you mean by that because I sure as hell felt like I was fucking alone for the past months and you telling me otherwise is rubbing me the wrong way.”

At first it seemed like Jay couldn’t get any redder, but there he goes, the color rising up to his ears. He pulls in a shaky breath and turns away from Tim, coming down to sit on the bit of space left on the bed. Long fingers curl through his hair and tug in frustration.

“I want to answer you, I really, really do,” he huffs, tugging harder with each uttered word. “But I’ve just felt like I was there with you, helping as best as I could. Like, A-Alex would have been able to shoot you, that night he…”

Jay hunches, shoulders closing together. His hands come to rub against each other, but how could he possibly be cold, Tim can feel the heat rolling off of him from mere inches away.

“You know what I mean,” Jay continues. Tim does, he doesn’t need anything more than that. No grisly details, not when he relives the sensation of an old friend’s hot blood splattering over his face every other night. “He was close, but, at one point, I managed to get a bullet out and he ran out of them, just in time.”

There’s no reason for Jay to lie about that, but Tim’s kneejerk reaction is to shake his head and roll onto his side, away from his friend. He’d been alone in that school, facing Alex man to man, fighting for the sake of what they had left: each other. By then, Alex was too gone to realize what Tim was offering him, and he did what he had to.

It hadn’t felt as though Jay were there with him, at all.

“Last night was along the same lines,” Jay pipes up when Tim doesn’t fill the silence between them. His fingers twist and cross, unsettled. “I didn’t know where you were one minute, but then, I /felt/ you were in trouble and that you were halfway across the state, so… I showed up.”

“You just drove to see me?” Tim blinks, puzzled. Jay wags his head from side to side, placing his face in his hands.

“No. I don’t have a car. I didn’t even walk here. I thought of myself next to you, saving you from that woman, and there I was.”

Now, Tim is fully sitting up, balancing a good amount of his weight on the arm that isn’t made useless by shoulder pain. He’s looking Jay over again, taking in his thin arms and weak legs that are only good for carrying him away from bad situations as fast as they can. 

“So you saved me from her. But you, uh, no offense, but you’re not exactly in peak fighting condition and she was able to hold /me/ down…”

The bristly sidelong glance Jay gives him for the unintentional insult triggers a flood of fluttery nostalgia in Tim’s stomach. 

“Yeah, well, I didn’t have to fight her,” Jay says, turning his eyes to the floor again. “I didn’t even have to shove her or anything. I don’t know how I did it, but when I touched her, she just… burst. Not as in she exploded and guts were everywhere but she went up and was this beam of light for a minute and then she was gone.”

Yes, yes, Tim remembers that, he was temporarily blind and his eyelids had glowed, taking on the illumination given off by the pillar of pure light. Then there were Jay’s eyes appearing in front of him, and he lost it there, broken off as unconsciousness took him under. 

“I don’t-- this is all great, it’s about the best thing that could’ve happened,” Tim admits, and god he can only hope this isn’t the most realistic, most painful dream he’s ever lived through, but he’s reaching out for Jay and his arm is solid beneath his touch and it couldn’t be more wonderful. “But none of it makes sense. Even with you taken out of the equation.”

“Yeah, huh,” Jay mumbles in agreement. He tucks his knees against his chest and shivers, in spite of the heat Tim can feel under his hand. “I don’t feel like myself. But I don’t think that lady felt anything like herself either. She... she was obviously human but she reminded me of a wolf, I heard her howling when I came by.”

Tim snorts; no need to tell him twice, something was wrong with her. Whatever was with her, though, it’s nothing compared to Jay, being able to flit from place to place in the blink of an eye and simply /know/ when Tim needs someone at his side. Jay’s seeming affliction is the favorable one in the end; he’d likely be dog chow right now if it weren’t for him, and maybe he ought to say as much.

“I guess I owe you my life twice over,” Tim sighs before taking his shirt’s collar and tugging it over the twinging shoulder. He sees the cause of all his troubles: although the marks have inexplicably scarred over, there are raised paths of pink along his otherwise tan skin, reminding him of the claw marks he and Jay would find on tree trunks while in the woods. Not as obvious are the pinpricks of red, a circle of indents dotting the area around the scratches. “…I’m also guessing this is thanks to you. The fact that these aren’t bleeding everywhere and actually look nicely healed, that is.”

Jay’s shoulders go up in a shrug, while at the same time he’s nodding. Alright. Tim rolls his eyes and runs his fingers over the scars, counting. One, two, three four claws…

“She managed to dislocate your leg and fuck up your knee more,” Jay explains, turning slightly and brushing his fingertips over the mentioned area. “I think I had more success healing that than the marks. No matter how hard I concentrate, they just won’t go away.”

“Huh,” Tim mumbles, pulling the shirt back into place. “So it’s like how you just managed to be here the moment you needed to be.”

“…yeah.”

Tim knows better than to say the word that he’s sure they’re both thinking of. Despite experiencing the world warping and tearing at the seams while a creature in a suit that could be its own skin reaches for their throats, it’s hard to force the words from their lips and admit it: it’s magical. It sounds like the wrong word for it, that it’s too whimsical to truly suit what they fought through, but magic doesn’t have to be ‘good’. 

Being in contact with something of another dimension for as long as Jay was, maybe it isn’t as much of a surprise as Tim might have thought. Empathy can be a powerful emotion, and it might have ensnared him and pinned him down to rearrange his cells into pattern that matches that of a creature that resembles a human but… Is not.

But what the fuck does Tim know? He faced the moon-headed monster for years, from childhood and to beyond, and he still can’t pinpoint how it works. Guesses have been made, and broad assumptions as well, and thus far, they’ve done him well, kept him safe as he could possibly be, and now he’s beyond the thing’s reach. He knew enough to get away, not enough to understand how it could have affected Jay.

Strange powers or no strange powers, though, Jay is here with him. He isn’t alone, and the person he’d left vulnerable to the exploding tip of a gun and a broken man’s will, he’s here with him, and he can wrap his arms around him and bury his face in his back, breathing heavy and taking in his aroma. Full of stale fear and exhaustion, but still inherently musky and nutty-- it’s the scent on Jay’s belongings, a scent Tim became acquainted with when he was forced to realize how much of a mark the man left behind on him.

He’s here again. 

At some point between when Tim sat up and when he hid his face in the space beneath Jay’s neck, he began to cry. He feels it in his shoulders and in the salty damp spots forming in the other man’s sweater.

Jay doesn’t so much as flinch, even if he has every right to shove him away.

Tim probably imagines it. But he thinks Jay is leaning into him and maybe even encouraging his touch.

It’s all he could ever ask for in this moment.


	3. Empathetic Dead Men

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tim and Jay are on the road again, this time with a firm goal in mind. Along the way, though, Tim is met with a mysterious onset of illness and the question of whether he really wants Jay with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings for references to blood, pills in the form of medication, and scars.

Jay, as Tim predicted he would, already knew what happened to his home. Like Jay’s own apartment, it fell to ashes, enveloped in flames set by a force gone out of control. At least Tim knows who it was that stood behind the fire as the cause. Jay won’t ever have that sort of closure.

As a result, Jay makes it known that he disapproves of Tim’s hotel-hopping and wouldn’t let it continue so long as he has the power to prevent it. 

And how does Jay get his point across?

By having Tim wake to the hotel room all packed up. His clothes are lying in skivvy rolls inside a knapsack, and the tiny bottles of soap and shampoo from the bathroom are thrown in there as well. A pot of foul smelling coffee sits in wait for him to chug it down.

To wake up and find that not only is this Jay isn’t a figure of his dreams, he’s more Jay-like and fussier than ever, it’s a bit of a shock to his system. Not that Tim is protesting the potential of finding a more permanent roof over his head. This just isn’t the way he expected to find a new home.

“It’s a couple days of driving across state,” Jay says to Tim while helping him hobble down the hotel steps, past the pointedly empty receptionist’s desk. “When I picked out a university to go to, I wanted to get as far away from mom and dad as possible.”

Tim nods in understanding, he did the same when he ventured out to college. It was better for him, having responsibility forced upon him and nobody around to hand it off to. That in itself was enough of a reason for Tim to go, but it certainly wasn’t the only one.

(“I’m /tired/ of you being like this. Exhausted! We’ve brought you to every single doctor on the goddamn planet and you’re not any better! This isn’t their fault, it’s /yours/! You don’t want to get better, or if you even do, you don’t want it enough! You have to stop feeling sorry for yourself. It isn’t going to get any easier when you’re out on your own, and--”)

Unfortunately for the both of them, the distance now means they have a long trip to make.

Tim does ask; why can’t they simply… pop on over there like Jay is capable of doing? His face flashes an impressive pink at the question. He stoops over the bags where they sit out by Tim’s car, grasping over the straps and never quite grabbing them.

“It occurred to me, believe me,” Jay says, taking his time in straightening up and holding Tim’s knapsack to his chest as an emotional shield. “But, hm, ah, it’s, see, it’s like this? I can only show up where you currently are, I’ve tried zipping home before but, wouldn’t fly, yeah.”

Why he’s embarrassed by that, Tim has no idea, even if he does have to admit it is pretty strange. It’s not the first thing on his mind at the moment. His main worry is his poor wallet; it’ll be crying and empty by the time they make it to Jay’s parents. 

Not as though he has any other options. Right now, he’s going to go where Jay goes, no doubts about it. To have him out of his sight again means shaking off this feeling that this is a dream and that Jay was never here at all, and that’s unacceptable.

(Still. Reassuring himself that he’s got both feet in reality through the shooting pains in his arm doesn’t make it easier to accept this Jay.)

(It’s Jay. There’s no question of it. He is the curled ball of pent up energy and nerves that Tim came to call his friend before, constantly bearing a sarcastic remark on his tongue that he’s too kind to let roll off in a loud, proud voice. He laughs softly, cries when no one is looking-- or so he thinks-- and speaks like he might get shut down at any second. A person who wants to speak but doesn’t want to take up space.)

(But the air around him is charged and tickles at Tim’s nerves, crawling up inside him and jolting him to sit upright, muscles tense and ready. Power comes rolling off of Jay in violent waves, increasing in force as his emotions jump up and down in the face of road rage and some asshole that cuts them off at the intersection.)

(Tim finds himself comparing it to the sort of energy he recalls radiating from the monster as it towered over his too human form. It’s not the same, not born of hatred and anger, though it is does travel the same vein: passion. Jay is pumped full of it, ready to ride to the next planet over and beyond to save someone who won’t remember his name when he safely returns them to their normal everyday life.)

(And if Tim is unable to trust what he’s feeling, he need only to look at Jay’s face and peer into his lightning blue eyes, a tint brighter than they were before. It’s an effect that can’t be achieved by contacts, and Jay never so much as complained of bad eyesight while with Tim before.)

(As Tim’s heart settles and he relaxes again alongside a friend that ought to be gone to the nonexistent bullet hole in his gut, he doesn’t dare let himself think for a minute that this Jay is the same person who dragged him screaming from his shell.)

(He’s changed. And if one were to ask Tim, considering the raised rakings of pink on his shoulder did not kill him, it would seem Jay has changed for the better.)

\--

Tim can’t count how many times he’s woken up ill. A myriad of symptoms, he’s had them all, mixing together some nights and showing up separate on others. Blood trickled and etched a burning trail down his throat, and he gagged on the taste, hacking it up and painting his sheets white with red mismatched polka dots. Muscles tightened and untightened rapidly at an impossible pace, and he shook in place, pinned to the ground by his own body. 

He could wake up in any manner, any way, and he would not be surprised in the least. A sickly man assumes the worst and when the worst comes, he is ready for it.

This, he isn’t ready for.

Sleeping in the back of a car never ends well; sore cracking spines and stiff legs are to be expected. After months spent curled in the driver’s seat, blanket tucked up over his shoulders, Tim didn’t like the transition to the back one bit-- but neither he nor Jay wanted to sleep alone.

(“It’s safer this way,” Jay said. “We can keep an eye on each other.”)

(Tim nodded, uncertain whether Jay was trying to assure him or himself.)

Being in the back, seats tucked away into the floor to create space that’s hardly enough for a pair of bodies to huddle down in, it means relying on an unforgiving surface for comfort when it doesn’t yield and conform to any human body.

So when Tim blinks awake from a slumber so restless it can’t legally be considered proper sleep, he merely rolls his eyes upon attempting to unfold his leg from his curled body and discovering that it’s wracked with tight pain. 

What makes him freeze and stare down at his body is the sensation of tiny lightning bolts shooting up along his legs and jumping to the nerves beneath the rest of his skin. ‘Seizure,’ he thinks at first, closing his eyes and gritting his teeth. He gropes around, knowing the knapsack is here with him and that his little savior-in-a-bottle is inches away. 

The zipper fights him the whole way, about tearing off of the bag altogether but it eventually succumbs to his jerky hand motions and allows him to grab inside. His fingers manage to wrap around the orange bottle and draw it out into the open. If he weren’t somewhat horrified at the lack of control he has over his trembling fingers, he’d be worried about waking Jay-- the pills rattling around inside remind him of popcorn hopping around while it explodes from the kernels. 

It’s better not to dry swallow pills but he can’t wrangle his hand into reaching for the knapsack again. Keep calm, keep calm, he’s fine, he has his hands on what makes the worst of it go away and he’ll be human again, he’s /fine/. The cap pops off, sending a flurry of tablets to the ground, each one skillfully missing Tim’s open palm. Snatching one up is far more difficult than it should be but the point is that he succeeds and a solid pebble scrapes down Tim’s dry throat, bringing with it an exhale of relief.

He waits.

And waits.

The muscles fail to relax. He thinks they coil up further, in fact, and he’s gasping for breath as he pats out at Jay, who annoyingly yet miraculously has not stirred. His bedmate hefts his head from the makeshift pillows of folded up jackets and squints through the night, murmuring something Tim can’t make out over the blood rushing in his ears.

One glance tells Jay what he needs to know. His lips part and he sucks in a gasp that cuts itself short when he darts toward Tim, throwing his legs on either side of his waist and holding his full weight against his body. In most circumstances Tim could easily buck him off but this time it’s what he needs, and the hand that caresses his cheek is a comfort unlike any other he’s ever known. The one that comes to shield his eyes coaxes his heart to skip a nervous beat, but, he trusts Jay, he needs to right now or he’s got nothing.

“Make it stop,” Tim hears himself say, (and he hears the ten year old he once knew, the ten year old that never had the chance to be ten years old because of a monster that had no right to exist, he hears him begging for freedom) and he’s scared. He doesn’t want to admit it but he’s fucking scared, he might be dying and it /would/ be his luck, dying right after Jay comes back to him, but.

He’s not shaking anymore.

It’s the strangest sensation, to realize the pain has a purposeful path and is climbing up his body, a river that comes to a close at his head. Skull threatening to burst, he has to stifle a raw chested scream-- and it’s gone, leaving his nerves tingling, confused at the sudden halt. 

Tim opens his eyes, seeing nothing. The inside of Jay’s hand is black and he says as much, prompting the man to lift it away and allow him to see.

Past the dark that’s permeating through the car’s windows, a pair of lightning blue eyes look back at him, glowing bright as the Alabama stars when a moment ago they were dull as could be. Jay’s chest heaves, suddenly breathless, and Tim wants to scream and hit out at him for being strange, for dragging strangeness back into their fucking lives.

But how dare he, when he’s the one that went and started being strange himself?

“What are you?” Tim utters, not a proper question but a painfully puzzled slip of the lips, his thoughts refusing to remain contained. His eyes are burning and he has to blink rapidly to keep the tears inside, but they trickle out anyway when Jay comes down and hides in his neck. Tim clings to him, angry as he is, this is all he’s got left. “What /are/ you?” he says again, his voice breaking.

Droplets drain from Jay’s eyes, dripping to the floor past Tim’s neck. They go unseen, forming small glittering puddles of sapphire blue that fade away in less than a second.

“I don’t know,” Jay murmurs, breath hot. Tim’s hands grip into the back of his sweat soaked nightshirt, and it takes every ounce of his being not to start shaking again. 

Neither man moves, too afraid to let go and look the other in the eye, lest they see something there they cannot understand.


	4. Fairy Tears

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A peek into Jay's mind shows that he is as burdened by worries and fear as his changing best friend.
> 
> One question whirls around in his mind constantly: Maybe he really is a freak.

When a pair of people weighed down by the memories of the worlds they’ve left behind are left alone together, they eventually speak of the things they would normally keep locked up and out of reach. It doesn’t happen straight away, but sitting wordless as the car cruises down the empty road, radio hissing after a fruitless search for a signal, Tim and Jay can’t resist filling the silence. 

(Jay remembers those trips well. He learned of the true man that Tim doesn’t show anybody he meets on the street or in passing, lest he give away too much and leave himself open to new horrors that long to rip him asunder. The person that Jay met is a reflection of the man he met after these car trips and… he’s just as much of an asshole.)

(Both Tim himself and the reflection of Tim are abrasive, quick to assume the worst of a comment made offhand and quicker to bite back and tear people a new one. If somebody is bothering him one way or another, he isn’t polite about it; he’ll let them know and find something else to do when they’re standing there, jaw dropped and aghast. Tim Wright isn’t someone who believes in letting people down gently or dunking his words in honey so that they can be easier to swallow.)

(Jay thinks it’s how he weeds out the people that are worth keeping around, though. Maybe he’s lucky to be just as bristly on the surface, albeit not as loud or prone to violent fits.)

Now that he knows of the true Tim, though, knows of the Tim that lays awake for hours trying to pry apart the puzzle pieces to see the answers underneath and hurting only himself in the process, these car trip conversations are no longer about learning.

“I want you to know that you did the right thing.”

They’re about paying back the favor for all that he’s done. 

Tim stirs from his position against the window, his forehead pressed into the glass and forming a spot of fog. He turns his head slightly, eyes squinted up with sleep.

“Whazzat?” he slurs past dry lips, licking them and sitting up. 

Jay’s hands are white around the steering wheel. He unconsciously presses his foot onto the gas pedal, taking his nervous energy out on the car. A green light blinks at them from overhead and he ignores it with nobody to slow down for; it flickers over to red when he zips out beneath it.

“I know that I didn’t… react like a sane person would when I found out about Jessica,” Jay explains, speaking slowly so that this sleepy Tim can understand. His brown eyes brighten in realization, and he straightens in his seat, one hand going to his seatbelt and fiddling anxiously with the clicking mechanism. 

“You thought she was dead, I, uh, I don’t know, it was over the top but you weren’t yourself and you’d found out I was lying to you, and--”

“And you were doing it to protect her,” Jay interrupts before Tim can dig himself in too deep. “It’s what I wanted to do for her and you were doing what I couldn’t do. I’m… saying that I’m grateful and that you shouldn’t beat yourself up for it when it was really the only way we could have kept her out of harm’s way.”

That has Tim staring down into his lap, where he runs his palms over the denim of his jeans again and again. Jay leaves him to it for a time, focusing on the road instead. He recognizes these roads and can tell they’re getting close to where they need to be. If he loses concentration, they’ll be circling back and the car will chug down precious gas when they don’t have any money left for it.

But, he isn’t finished, not by a long shot. Hell, he could talk for an entire day, assuring Tim that he did his best and that he has nothing to hate himself for. He couldn’t help that Brian became something beyond human comprehension, how Alex took the same path and was unreachable by the time he got to him-- oh, but Alex.

“You did the right thing with Alex, too. It wasn’t your fault that he wouldn’t listen,” he says while the car takes a wide left turn into a neighborhood that hasn’t been touched by living hands in god knows how long. The bricks of these homes are scuffed and fading, and the windows stand empty, glass knocked out of their frames by teens who can’t find a better way to let off their feelings.

Tim is tense at his side, performing the thousand yard stare and looking off into the nothing. The blood that Jay tastes on his tongue stems from the empathy that flows strong through his veins. 

“I made a ton of noise about how I was going to do what you did, but you saw what happened once I had the chance to,” Jay goes on, tapping a finger against the wheel. The image is still clear in his mind, of the lack of recognition that he was met with upon looking into the gun-wielding creature’s face. “It wasn’t Alex by that point anyway, and… you were doing him a favor, I think. You set him free and he didn’t have a chance to wake up and see what he’d done.”

What coppery taste was left in Jay’s mouth floods away down his throat. He swallows down the heat and chances a glimpse at Tim’s side of the car. This time, they catch eyes, and Tim doesn’t hide away.

“You think so?”

There is certainly nothing to smile about, not with the talk of death between them. But Jay manages anyway, conjuring up what he hopes is a comforting grin.

“I know so.”

He doesn’t expect his smile to be returned, and it isn’t. Instead, Tim reaches out, his hand hovering over Jay’s forearm, close to touching but he hesitates, like physical contact is what he wants but he can’t bring himself to show he wants it. 

Tim looks at his own hand for a moment longer, then drops it, nodding and muttering something that sounds like it might be a thank you. Jay nods back and places his full attention upon the road again.

(Maybe he’s imagining it. But he sees how Tim moves, he saw how quickly he scrambled up to the passenger side once they woke this morning like touching Jay might cause him to catch ill-- more ill than he already is.)

Last night, Jay saved him from the jolts that were rushing through his nerves, but it’s not something he could have done before, when he was himself.

(Jay hasn’t felt like himself in a while. And maybe Tim can sense that. Is afraid of it.)

He can’t blame Tim for being cautious when he was the same way back when the mask was still a real threat to their efforts to stay alive. When something comes into their midst that can never be fully understood, instinct has conditioned them to step lightly and avoid at all costs.

(That doesn’t save Jay from hurting, though.)

(Especially when he keeps in mind that Tim didn’t express any of this guilt over the secrets he kept or the blood he willingly took upon his hands. He didn’t speak a word of it, didn’t even imply it, and Jay isn’t making any assumptions here.)

(He simply knows. He felt the pain sitting tight inside Tim’s throat and wanted to loosen it up so that he could exist with less to tote around on his back.)

(And he knows he found out about this guilt through the strangeness that is sitting inside of him.)

(Maybe Tim is right in wanting not to be near him.)

\--

The driving has finally come to an end. Calvin Street is an area that stands across from where their final destination ought to be, according to Tim’s phone. It’s empty as could be, a standing monument to the American Dream and all of its flaws. Picket fences that boast of chipped paint are Tim and Jay’s welcoming committee, and screen doors that swing in the breeze provide a more vocal greeting.

Neither of them want nothing more than for Jay to take that last turn and get them out of this desolate place.

But the man is taking his time, has the car parked off to the side (unnecessary, seeing as neither of them have seen a car zip past them on its way to the Middle of Nowhere). He has Tim’s phone, which, Jay thinks, in any other lifetime would be giving him a serious case of the sweats, but there’s nothing suspicious for Jay to find on here. No texts from a hooded menace, no material that might allude to Tim being not so trustworthy, nothing. 

It’d be sad if he wasn’t losing his goddamn mind.

“I’m just not sure if this is the right place, I feel like we took a wrong turn back on the highway and maybe this is a different village we’re in,” Jay mutters for nobody’s benefit but his own. He scrolls up and down the map he has open on Tim’s screen. Up, down, across the road, to an area dotted with a hundred fast food restaurants-- civilization. Jay eyes it hopefully, wondering if he can convince Tim into thinking that they need to head out there first, to safety. 

No way, though, he kept stressing that they needed to be going /this/ way, moving toward /that/ address. He doesn’t know why he’s bothering pretending that he’s lost, especially when he can tell Tim has given up on believing him. The other man is leaning his chin on his hand, elbow propped against his knee. 

“So when are we going to stop pretending we’re not almost there?” Tim asks as though on cue. Jay shrinks away from him and hugs the phone to his chest, face burning.

“…Once I’m not terrified that my parents aren’t going to scream at me for vanishing and then come back as a freak.”

That gives Tim pause. The heat in Jay’s face increases, and he has to hide away in his arms, waiting for Tim to be the one to speak because he sure as hell isn’t going to.

“What-- okay, what’s that supposed to mean?””

Jay shakes his head, rubbing a hand down his face before sitting up and tossing Tim’s phone back into his lap. The last two nights play over in his head, though they might as well be the same evening in repeat-- Tim shying away from him, guilt heavy in his gut, and Jay keeping his head down to prevent further trouble between them. Jay won’t be the one to cause trouble.

He caused enough in the past. 

“It means I’m not stupid, you’re bothered by… by this,” Jay huffs, gesturing to his eyes. They’re watering now, and he has to blink fast to hide the tears before they come out looking like melted jewels. Pretty as it is, it’s weird, it’s /scary/, and Tim knows it. Jay hunches into his seat and hugs his knees, breath shuddering. “I thought you were okay with it at first but then you started hiding from me when we slept and, honestly, what else am I supposed to think when you never cared about me sleeping in your bed at hotels? What else could this be about?”

“…Jay, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t do that,” Jay spits. He shoots daggers at Tim over his elbow. “Don’t try to save my feelings here. Just tell me if you want me to leave.”

“No!” Tim blurts out, hands raising as though to pin Jay down and prevent him from darting out of the car. “No, no, please, god, don’t go, that’s the last thing that I want.”

“Then why are you hiding from me at night and acting like touching me is the worst thing ever?” Jay jabs out with a single finger, brushing Tim’s arm. The other man flinches away, leaning into the window. “See! That’s what I’m talking about.”

“Th- that’s not fair, I wasn’t expecting that!” Tim shoots back, brow furrowing as he straightens up. “Alright, you want the truth? Yeah, I’m nervous around you right now, because you’re obviously not yourself, and with your past record, that’s rarely ever a good thing.”

Regret spikes in Jay’s gut, painful and scraping at his insides. He rubs his hands up and down his face, three days’ worth of scruff scratching at his palms. 

“As if I don’t know that. I apologized. You saw that.”

“And it meant the world to me,” Tim says so softly, the sincerity nearly burns Jay from the inside. “But it’s obvious you’ve got these abilities that you never had before and I don’t know if they might cause you to do something you, well, might not want to do.”

It’s funny; Jay is used to being the one people call stupid, not the other way around. He has to bite his lip to keep from letting out the bitter laughter that’s hopping around within his throat. Shaking his head, he sits up properly, legs in the foot well and hands lightly folded on his lap.

“I’m seriously questioning your logic right now when I’ve only used these so called abilities to help you. You said it yourself. I saved your life.”

If Tim could reek of discomfort any more-- he squirms in his seat, eyes flicked off to the side.

“Well, yeah, but.”

“But nothing. /Nothing/, Tim,” Jay says, speaking slowly before reaching and taking Tim’s wrist in a tight grip. Tim could easily rip away from him if he so wished, but he remains still. “I’ve never felt more in control of myself before. I won’t hurt you because these powers make me want to do the exact opposite. I want to protect you.”

Tim’s eyes are fixed on their touching skin, bright but calm, adjusting to the feeling, to touching again. Jay loosens his hold some, running the pads of his fingertips over the hair overlapping from Tim’s arm onto his wrist. Soft and real, wonderfully real after losing the ability to touch for too long. It’s hard to be angry at him when Jay missed him so much.

“I don’t think you’re a freak. I was just scared.”

It’s even more difficult when Tim speaks honestly, as he promised to, once upon a time. He’s still working on that and maybe he always will, and Jay will work on it with him. 

“I’ll tell you if I feel off. I’ll be honest as long as you stay honest too,” he promises him, his fingers sliding down to encircle Tim’s, not for any true purpose but because it feels right. “I’ve never felt better in my life, even if I’m just as confused by what’s happening to me. And I hope that I can keep using these abilities to help.”

Tim nods shortly, silent, but it’s all the answer Jay needs; he trusts Tim.

(He can’t help it. His mind has been rewired and he knows cutting ties with him would be impossible in the first place.)

(It would be frightening to have so little choice if Jay didn’t crave Tim’s presence as much as he does.)

“I-- I’m still not ready to see my parents, though,” Jay murmurs as he takes his hand back, twisting his fingers in his lap. “Abilities or not, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen them and--”

“You wanna get your head together. I get you, don’t worry about it.”

Jay lets out a long sigh of relief while Tim climbs into the back of the car, accepting the extra night of hiding out in the car without a fight. 

Of course Tim gets it. Jay remembers the stories of absent parents that only showed up when they felt their son was at his most ‘sane’. He understands how necessary the prep time can be.

And maybe that’s why Jay is connected to him the way he is. He understands the broken parts of him in a way that nobody else ever can.


	5. Opportunistic dogs?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tim has been keeping secrets about what's going on beneath his skin. Whatever it is, it's hungry, and he has reached a point where he's willing to let it do anything for the sake of ending this hunger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for emetophobia, and, uh, raw meat, I don't know how to explain this but I'm sure someone would want to be warned about it being a big part of this chapter.  
> This one's been sitting in the word doc a while cos I've been doubting myself writing this fic and at this point I'm thinking, well, might as well just truck on. So that's why the wait. Enjoy.

This isn’t the first time Tim has been woken by the rumbling of his own stomach. When somebody is living on minimum wage (a part-time job, since nobody else would take him, too afraid to take a chance on such a tired-eyed boy) and struggling to keep food on the table and in their belly, they tend to miss a few meals. That’s not even taking into account the evenings where he and Jay decided that maybe they can skip dinner for tonight, they can always try again tomorrow night, if they’re close to a cheap restaurant.

But.

Tim has been eating. He’s had full meals for the last couple of days, been forced to shove down crackers and chips from all the rest stops that he and Jay stumbled across. Not that Tim has resisted or refused to eat in the first place, he’s fucking /starving/, he’s been starving since he found Jay, or rather, Jay found him.

Out of everything that’s gone into his mouth, none of it is that special something capable of hitting the spot. Now, Tim is as far from a picky eater as one can get. Growing up, he shoved whatever was in front of him down his throat, no complaints, because compared to hospital food it was all fucking gourmet to him. 

A hollow and bottomless pit has formed in his stomach, though, and its shape has taken on that of a food he has yet to find. Salty Pringles, crunchy granola bars, scrambled eggs and pancakes from twenty four hour diners, none of it is shutting his stomach up.

Worse yet, it’s all coming back up for a round two.

He hasn’t told Jay about it, chalked it up to still not being entirely well after the incident where his nerves were practically on fire the other night. Logic it away and maybe he won’t have to worry about it, it’ll fuck off on its own and he’ll be okay.

(he needs to stop this, pretending he’s okay by ignoring what’s inside, because something is there--)

Except, now, he’s shambling out of the backseat door and collapsing to the asphalt, heaving on his hands knees in the middle of this desolate fucking road. 

This is the fourth time this week-- not counting the feigned trips to the bathroom back in the diner. He could hang onto his dignity there in the protective stalls as he gagged on the nowhere near digested food creeping out of his belly. Here, where he has no cover and he’s in the open, puking in the street like a drunk giving in to loss of control, he can’t help the embarrassed flush that creeps over his face.

What’s it matter, though, nobody’s around here, he’s alone, has to face this on his lonesome because whatever voodoo weirdness is bouncing around inside Jay, it’s obviously not enough to save Tim.

He breathes in cool air through his nose, sitting back on his haunches and slicking his hair out of his face, sweat catching a couple stray strands and sticking them to his forehead. Now there’s not even the illusion of fullness to keep him from worrying that he might fucking pass out while standing in front of Jay’s parents. Good first impression; a trip to the hospital.

At least it would take the focus off of Jay, he’d probably enjoy that.

But that’s beside the point. He needs-- fuck, he needs something or he’s going to go out of his mind. There must be an open store around here /somewhere/ and he’s-- 

No, shit, no, no, /no/, he can’t do this here, not while Jay’s asleep. Tim opens his mouth wide as he sinks against the car, tries to force Jay’s name from his lungs and call out to him. A breathless yell comes out instead, just as he’s slumping onto his side and the streetlights are flickering, on, off, fading from his vision altogether. 

Nothing.

Tim drifts through the dark that coats the inside of his skull, a dark he’s familiar with having gone to sleep with it for years. Past it, he can hear footsteps, bare feet slap-slap-slapping against the pavement. Wind rustles around him, stroking through his hair and pulling it back to stand. 

He’s /moving/ but he isn’t in control of it, and if he wasn’t down-to-the-bones exhausted, he’d be fighting it. As afraid as he was of Jay’s new powers, maybe he was misdirecting that fear and he ought to be questioning what’s driving him to take a midnight stroll after passing out from what he /assumes/ was hunger.

It’s-- no, it can’t be the creature that took on the plastic painted face. He knows what it is like to have that asshole traveling through his system, manipulating his hands and his mouth to say what needs to be said. They were an icy venom that licked down the tunnels of his veins and used him as they saw fit.

This new feeling is one that’s /looking out/ for him. It wants to feed and fix this aching crater inside of him.

And he lets it. He even guides it to the nearest store, murmurs to it and goes by the memory of his own phone, clutched within Jay’s shaky hands. There was a fast food place down this street and if he follows the dusty glow of these streetlamps shining on his eyelids he’ll be in the right area. Keep his head low and nobody will pay attention to him, no, just passing through. His feet may be bare and his eyes are glazed, but he has as much right to be here as anybody else.

His nose tingles and this creature driving his body turns him around, pressing his palms into brick. This building has what he needs. The creature knows and his stomach gurgles loud enough for the world to hear. 

It hesitates, the question is there unvoiced but felt and acknowledged. And Tim gives his permission: do what’s needed, make this go away.

Glass shatters, unseen by his mind’s eye but heard felt in the lashings across his wrist and arm. Crunch, crunch; blood bursts from the soles of his feet but the beast goes on, unafraid of the pain that rides up Tim’s legs in shocks and shivers. 

Step by step by step, he comes to stand before an artificial breeze. If he weren’t just outside he might mistake it for a normal wintery wind blowing against his face. This has to be a fridge, though, the aroma of raw cold blood swirling up to his nose. 

A cold substance is upon his fingers, squishy and yielding within his hands. His fingers rise to his mouth, and his stomach /fills/ as the meat drops past his throat. He’s never tasted something so wonderful-- food is nice, he always thought so, but it isn’t until now that he’s understood why people can find passion in cooking. That saying; hunger is truly the best spice?

As he swallows and licks his fingers clean before the drive within him dives for a second helping, he finds without a doubt that it is the truth. 

\--

‘Al’s Convenience Shop was broken into early this morning by a young man. He was seen on security footage making his move through the shop’s back windows. He shambled around for a few moments before the footage cut out altogether. It is unknown if the man tampered with the cameras, but they did come back on once he exited the store.’

‘He did not steal any money, but it is apparent that he took it upon himself to eat all of the raw beef in the store, leaving behind nothing but the plastic wrapping.’

‘Police did find his blood on the floor, but they are reporting that it resists any testing that they perform upon it. Furthermore, we have been vague thus far in our report about the man’s appearance because before the cameras cut out, they began to glitch and it was impossible to pick out the man’s defining features.’

‘Al himself says, quote, ‘that it would have been the perfect crime if this weirdo had been a little more opportunistic’. Nonetheless, he is relieved to find his store is otherwise untouched.’

‘If you have any information on who is behind this strange crime, please dial the station--’

“Why’d you turn off the radio?”

“…It was just making me sick thinking about that, uh, guy eating all that meat straight up.”

“Ah. Yeah. That was pretty weird. Uh, I guess we shouldn’t be sitting around. We oughta try to look a little more like we take care of ourselves and less like we’re been on the road for nearly a week.”

“Yeah. Especially me. Don’t wanna make a bad impression on your parents.”

“Eh, you’re better looking than me. You’ll have my mom’s approval in no time flat.”

“Shut up.”

“I’m just telling the truth.”

“And I’m just telling you to shut up. Now come on, we don’t wanna keep them waiting.”


End file.
